Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 358 kcal | 102 kcal |
| Protein | 14.4 g | 4.1 g |
| Fat | 5.7 g | 1.6 g |
| saturated | 1.9 g | 0.5 g |
| Carbohydrate | 54.4 g | 15.4 g |
| sugars | 26 g | 7.4 g |
| Fibre | 11.5 g | 3.3 g |
| Sodium | 300 mg | 85 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 450 grams eggs (8-9 eggs)
- 450 grams potatoes
- 5.2 kg medium onions diced
- 1 Tbsp. mustard
- 3/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Steam the potatoes whole and in their skins for about a quarter of an hour, then drop them straight into iced water. Steaming rather than boiling keeps them from waterlogging, and the ice bath stops them cooking through — you want them set, not soft.
- Cook the diced onions gently until they turn clear but take no colour. Browned onion tastes sweet and roasted and will dominate a dish whose other flavours are eggs and potato; pale onion stays in the background where it belongs.
- Peel the cooled potatoes and grate them on the coarse side of a grater. You are aiming for roughly two thirds of the raw weight once the skins are off.
- Heat the oven to 177 °C and line a 30.5 cm by 22.9 cm dish with baking paper.
- Whisk the eggs until they are uniformly yellow, then fold in the potato, onion, mustard, salt and pepper. Folding rather than beating keeps the air out; a bubbly omelet dries into something fragile.
- Pour the mixture in and push it into the corners. A dish that is deeper at one end bakes unevenly and gives you cubes that do not finish together.
- Bake for half an hour on the centre shelf, then turn the oven off and leave the dish inside for another ten minutes. That residual heat sets the middle without browning the top further.
- Cool the omelet on a wire rack, then peel the paper away and turn it out onto a board. Cutting it warm tears it.
- Cut it into 13 mm cubes by scoring columns first and then rows. Small and even is what matters — a cube twice the size takes far more than twice as long.
- Spread the cubes over a mesh tray with a little space around each one, so air can reach all six faces.
- Dehydrate at 63 °C for 7 hours. Cut two or three cubes in half at the end and look at the centre: it should be the same matt yellow throughout, with nothing darker or softer in the middle.
- Cool them completely and seal them in Mylar with an oxygen absorber. There is egg fat in these, and oxygen is what turns it.
- To eat them from a pot, cover them with water for five minutes, bring them to the boil for a minute, then leave the pot in a cosy for a quarter of an hour.
- In a thermos, cover them with boiling water and leave them for anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour. The longer soak gives a softer result.
